This invention relates to an image forming medium for forming a color image thereon, and more particularly to an image forming medium having high sensitivity for copying a color image using no specifically-manufactured sheet coated with developer material.
There has been conventionally utilized an image forming apparatus for irradiating an image light to a photosensitive recording medium coated thereon with microcapsules encapsulating photocurable composition such as photocurable material, dye, polymerization initiator and so on, whereby the microcapsules are cured only at exposed areas to record the image on the recording medium. The microcapsules used in the conventional image forming apparatus have low sensitivity, so that it takes a long time to perform an exposure process for irradiating light to the microcapsules. Further, the dye encapsulated in the microcapsules comprises leuco dye, and thus is required to be contacted with developer agent for color-developing the leuco dye through a reaction between the leuco dye and the developer agent. As a result, in order to perform a copying operation, a specific sheet such as a developer sheet coated with the developer agent must be used.